"This is Amatsu-machi," I heard my companion say.
With a start I came back to Japan.
"They're leaving us at the crossroads," said he.
The basha drew up. The two women got out. They thanked us prettily. Then amid many "Sayonaras" we drove off, while they stood and watched us, smiling and waving until we passed from their sight around a bend in the road.
"They have lovely natures, these Japanese women," the linguist presently remarked.
"If you'll look over a lot of American débutantes," I replied, "you'll find that they are just about as——"
"You don't understand," he interrupted. "I'm not talking about mere prettiness—though you'd hardly say that girl Gen wasn't pretty. I'm talking about spiritual quality. Couldn't you tell, just by looking at her, that she was sweet right straight through?"
"I guess she's all right," I answered in an off-hand tone.
That did not half satisfy him. But though he kept at me for a long time, trying to make me say something more enthusiastic, I would not be coerced. He was too much puffed up as it was.
I had another reason, too, for withholding from that pretty peasant girl the fullest praise. I must be faithful to the débutantes who, from far away, had come floating like a swarm of fairies to console me as I tugged Gen Tajima's lumbering cart along a dusty road upon the seacoast of Japan.